


On Prestige Street

by Capucine



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Childhood Friends, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - No Bending, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Martial Arts, Oneshot, sort of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-22
Updated: 2017-02-22
Packaged: 2018-09-26 07:12:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 614
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9872942
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Capucine/pseuds/Capucine
Summary: Zuko meets Mai one day on his street in the perfect neighborhood of Briarwood Estates.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This is an old, old one I found. *cringe*

Mai is not the first girl Zuko has seen wandering the suburb streets. It's a fancy suburb, something Zuko's long known since being banished to public school, where he won't waste the family's resources. It's got the sign on the outer part, where State Street has that curving opening onto their entrance street: Briarwood Estates.

And then King Street, and then Ruth Street, and then on to Zuko's home street—Prestige Street, rather loftily named for not being really all that better than the rest of the streets in the suburb.

The house, huge and three stories and with cobble-stone decorated walls, a perfect garden with orchids and tiny weeping willow like trees, green, uniform lawn, a white garage door, is a lot like the others along the street. There's a certain amount of uniformity—enough individuality to assure the residents they're not in some sort of poor, manufactured housing area, but not so much that it feels like they're in a quirky neighborhood where the houses were built independently of the others.

She looks built independently of the other kids, though. Most of the kids on this block would be wearing either their school uniforms, or a generic t-shirt and jeans, or a polo, or so on. Very clean, very acceptable.

She has dark, black hair, pulled up into two buns on her head. She has a black, long-sleeved jacket on, but it’s long enough that it almost goes down to her knees. She barely seems to emote, blinking at most at everything she sees. She has hiking boots on.

And Zuko can’t help but stare a little.

Stare, until Azula is the one to make the first move, like always. She flounces over to Mai, introduces herself in a crisp voice, and inquires what Mai’s doing to that flower.

It turns out she’s shredding it with a knife.

The conversation continues on from there, and Zuko’s pretty sure Azula has procured a friend. She’s way better than him at that, as she invites Mai to the backyard, apparently to throw knives.

Azula’s always been better at martial arts, and knife throwing sort of fits into that. Mai seems to enjoy it, though she only smiles in a secretive way.

It’s when Zuko approaches, as her eyes take him in with a slight, startled shine to them, that Azula gets vicious.

“Zuko, go away. This is _my_ friend, and you’re really bad at knives anyway,” she sneers.

Zuko glares, but she’s right. He sucks at knives. 

“You could try,” Mai offers quietly.

“Zuzu’s really bad at this stuff,” Azula assures her, “And he has to rake the yard anyway. That’s what Phoenix Middle School is training you for, right? Menial labor like the rest of the dum-dums?”

Zuko’s face is flaming. He can feel it. “I’m not a dum-dum! I can throw it!”

So he tries, Azula looking on with a smirk and he can’t. He can’t. He throws with all his might and the thing clangs off the swingset they were throwing it at.

Azula laughs, loudly, and even though Mai isn’t laughing, it feels to Zuko like she might as well be.

“Zuko--” Mai starts, but he storms off.

“I’ll get better at it! I’m just—I have to rake the yard right now!”

And he goes off to do his chores.

But it’s about at that point that he decides to take up swords as part of his martial arts. Since those are blades, right? And it’s offered at the martial arts center.

He doesn’t know it at the time, but this will certainly change his future—and his future is intertwined with Mai’s in ways he can’t know yet.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope this makes any sense, but I figured it was better to post it than delete it? Sorry if the present tense bothers you, btw!


End file.
